


The Strongest Types of Thread

by JustAnotherGhostwriter



Series: The Patchwork 'Verse [2]
Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Absolute fluff and very little else, Alphonse Elric: The Original Edwin Shipper, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Nanny, Brief mentions of parental deaths, Edwin roadtrip but on trains, F/M, Friends to Lovers to Friends to Lovers again, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 20:53:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26485210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/pseuds/JustAnotherGhostwriter
Summary: Winry and Ed both find themselves at the end of their internship and degree, respectfully. Both have a little time on their hands and a little money to spare. So why not go on a little month-long train journey through the country? It's a great idea, and then the things they thought they'd put to bed at eighteen all come up again, and they realise they might not have killed those feelings as dead as they thought they had.Can be read as a standalone.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric, Alphonse Elric & Winry Rockbell, Edward Elric & Pinako Rockbell, Edward Elric/Winry Rockbell
Series: The Patchwork 'Verse [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1925437
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	The Strongest Types of Thread

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Manalfedz (Manfedzku)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Manfedzku/gifts).



> **This can be read as a standalone** , as long as you know the following facts: this is a modern AU where the gang all live in England and Ed and Al go to Cambridge. Mustang is Ed’s thesis supervisor, and Team Mustang are his department underlings. Al has a muscular disease and walks with a cane, and Ed’s research is geared toward finding him a cure. To make very needed extra cash, Ed answered an advert to be Elicia Hughes’ nanny when Maes died and Gracia had to go back to work. Ed also ended up meeting, and saving, Nina Tucker, who went on to be fostered by Gracia. Winry has been across he UK at an Automail apprenticeship, which is basically the Hero Arm of this universe. The fic that started all my nonsense, [Edward Elric’s Guide to Quilting a Patchwork Family](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190938) by AVMabs, is entirely excellent and, even if you don’t read my first three-chapter, I highly recommend you read her oneshot. Seriously.
> 
> This fic is dedicated with love, appreciation, awe and affection to Manalfedz, who not only spawned this whole universe with a request but whose comments on the first fic in this series watered my crops, levelled me up to over nine thousand and made my heart swell to the size of Marge Dursley as she floated about Little Whinging. Thank you, so much, for what a precious payment your kind words were for my self-indulgent walls of words. (And for giving us all the “it tastes like our childhood home” bit in your fic, which I still think about and wheeze laugh at at random.)

It took a while for the truth of Hohenheim’s sudden reappearance and then sudden death shortly after to really hit Ed. At first, he’d been too confused about his feelings about his father, and too busy with uni work, to really process anything at all. When the inheritance money had come in, he’d tried to give all of it to Al because, between his research bursary and the frankly ridiculous amounts they paid him to peer review journal articles, he had no use for it for studies like Al did. Al wanted to refuse all of it, insisting that Ed should save. In the end, with help from responsible, terrifying adults, the two came to a compromise that left Al’s studies fully taken care of, Ed with some savings tucked away for him under Al’s watch and a fair bit of loose change in his hands that everybody insisted he use for something.

But Ed had no idea what to use Hohenheim’s money on – mostly because he still thought of it as _Hohenheim’s money_ and not his. A petty part of him wanted to waste it on something ridiculous, but even Ed could admit that there was no point trying to piss off the dead. That led to him thinking about all the reasons why he was still mad at his father despite the reconciliation that had taken place, which led to him being furious all over again how Hohenheim had gone travelling all over while Trisha had never even gotten her dreamed about trip over the UK before she died, and how neither of them cared about stuff like that any more, so it was up to Ed to care about it for them.

And that’s when it fully hit him that he was an orphan. This time, Hohenheim wouldn’t be able to come back to stand on trial by Ed’s justified fury.

“Ed? What’s wrong?”

He couldn’t blame Winry for sounding anxious; he hardly ever called unless it was an emergency, preferring to stick to texting, which he could do in a hurry even in noisy places.

“Nothing, nothing! I just... Win... You, uh... all your work right now can be done remotely, yeah? While you wait for the board to review your last portfolio?”

“Uh-huh,” she said, slowly. “All I’m doing is online pop quizzes – I told you they don’t believe in traditional sit-down exams? So they send in quizzes and essays out of the blue and give us a day or so to send them back in? To mimic real life, they say. Anyway. I have those. And any corrections to the designs they ask me to do.”

“And all that could be done... from anywhere?”

“What are you asking, Ed?”

“I’m... I wanna... All of my work can be done remotely, too. And I just... I was just thinking how it would be great to... travel. Just... while we can. Before we get real jobs, or whatever. But, um, Al is tied up here. And I remembered you said in your last call you’d be flexible so...” There was a very long silence on the other end. Ed grimaced, deeply, kicked the desk and began backpeddling. “Never mind. It’s stupid. Forget it, I –”

“Shut up. I’m looking to see when the earliest I can leave is.” Ed exhaled a weight off his chest. “Where would you wanna go?”

“I dunno. Just... around the UK? Train ride everywhere the train can go?”

“And find another way everywhere it doesn’t,” she replied in a distant murmur, and Ed remembered that she’d been around for Trisha’s happy daydreaming, too. But it was _Winry,_ and so knowing she saw at least partway through his bullshit didn’t make him feel utterly, wretchedly naked in ways worse than being without clothes on. “Okay. I can leave any day from next Friday. Where do you wanna go first.”

“West,” Ed decided on the spot, and Winry sighed at him in amused exasperation.

When the actual planning was done, Winry insisted on meeting Ed in Cambridge, despite his protests that they should meet at a more central location. He didn’t understand why she was being so impossible about it until he realised that she’d _known_ it would take her all but bodily marching him to the train station to get him to leave Al behind. He’d been away from his brother before, but never for a full month all at once like was planned now. And never when Al had been living _alone_ , with no Granny and Winry there to take care of him. Al may have been an adult, but it was still _Al_ , and Ed was irrationally terrified of leaving his younger brother. Winry had come prepared for this reaction Ed hadn’t known he was going to have, and this preparation, coupled with Al being utterly bemused, exasperated and enthusiastic for Ed to get the hell away and have an actual vacation finally convinced him to stand on the train platform, ready to go places without Al at his side.

Of course, as soon as the departure was _actually_ happening, Al lost all of his previous long-suffering fondness and turned a little unsure himself. He hugged Ed very tightly, not saying a word but swallowing hard, and Ed wondered if Winry would push him in front of the train if he backed out of it all at that moment. It was irrational, he knew. Al would be fine. Al knew Al would be fine. But they were still clinging to each other and thinking of ghosts and loneliness instead of pure logic.

“For the _love_ of Pete. _Honestly_ , you two. You’d think Ed’s joined the military and is off to war,” Winry sighed at them, and shepherded Ed away with practised ease. “Al – we’ll message you. Do the same. You know who to contact around here if you need help.”

“Yeah. Gracia said _any time_ , remember,” Ed reminded him, even as Winry propelled him onto the train.

“I know, Ed.” Al’s wave was slightly forlorn. “I’ll take good care of Elicia and Nina while you’re gone.”

“Don’t let them bully you!” Ed yelled.

Al said something Ed couldn’t catch, and then the train was closing up and moving on, and there was no sight of his brother at all, and a strangely hollow feeling in Ed’s chest. Winry slipped her hand into his flesh one, squeezing gently. Usually she favoured his Automail one, for reasons he’d never had the words to ask her for, but she _knew_ him, and _knew_ when he needed to feel her support. He let her lead him to their seats, and then let her coax him out of moping. They had their first fight before they reached their first stop and that, beyond everything else, settled them right back into their relationship and out of the slightly awkward aura that Ed’s mood and them being apart for some time had settled around them.

Things got better. Ed’s missing Al faded to something normal and manageable. He and Winry caught up on the little things that had sounded too unimportant to share over the phone or on the very few special occasions they’d seen one another. He noted, with surprise, the small ways she’d changed and sunk into the ways she was still the same like one would sink into a warm bath. While their general trajectory was planned, and some must see stops had been marked out, for the most part they were just going wherever seemed best, stopping wherever their fancy took them. Growing up in the country gave them the recklessness and intuition they needed to bum lifts off select farmers as they trundled along places where the trains didn’t necessarily run.

Ed won them a free dinner in a chicken-plucking contest. Winry danced for seven hours straight at a huge bonfire event with flowers stuck in her hair while Ed sat to the side with a bunch of young kids who put flowers in his braids and asked him Young Kid questions, trying not to stare at how beautiful Winry looked with that much joy shining out of her. He sat on the roof of an old building converted into a modest BnB, holding up her phone to the meagre bit of signal so she could use it as a modem. Winry sweet-talked an old man into letting them wash their clothes in his home while she helped him fix his tractor and Ed did a shoddy job nailing his broken fence back together. She nearly drowned him in Bath when her retribution for a poorly-timed comment sent him smacking too hard against a pillar, and she didn’t know whether to be apologetic or angry. He wasn’t sure, either, so they settled for being both – grumping at one another while she held ice to his head in the aftermath. In Epsom, Winry opted to stay with Ed in their small little two-bed BnB room and keep him company while he had a bad pain day, despite the fact that they were in the town for a steampunk convention that only lasted two days.

Through those and many other moments, good and bad and frustrating and endearing, the thing Ed had thought he’d firmly set to bed years ago started once again to _yearn_ in him. On good days, like the moment Winry fell asleep cuddling him to keep him warm and comfortable while he ached or the moment on the train when their shared headphones pulled up that ‘2002’ song he’d remembered seeing on her playlist more than a year ago and he got past hating the pop-y-ness of it and listened carefully to the lyrics, Ed wondered if it wasn’t just him. Other times, though, he watched how mad and angry he made Winry, or how casually unbothered she was around him, and he thought he’d better bury that dead dog again quick.

It all came to a head in Cardiff, of all places. He’d showered first that morning because the hot water didn’t look like it would last if she went in first, and he was doing what he usually did when she was puttering around sort-of dressed: purposefully not paying attention to her. It was an unspoken agreement they both gave to each other, and Ed had been taken off guard how much he really _appreciated_ that she did the same polite turn-away for him. Because Winry, apart from growing up with him and Al in a way that meant they’d frequently bathed together when really young and taken swims in their underwear when quite a bit older, was also one half of his mechanic team. She’d been his nurse while he recovered from surgery – had seen him, and worse than just seen him, utterly naked and nearly utterly helpless. And she hadn’t flinched then, but turned away from him when it wasn’t medical. Like there was a _difference_ , and she was committed to honouring that line between patient and friend.

And that same affection he didn’t know what to do with came back to his chest that morning in Cardiff as he thought about it all, so when she distractedly said she was done and he turned away from the journal article he was reviewing, he did so quietly, unsure how to be his usual self when his chest was so... full. And so Winry didn’t know he’d turned to look at her, probably thinking him still engrossed in the screen in front of him, and she’d therefore let the necklace she always wore around her neck but always kept tucked in securely so it never dangled into view dangle into view. And Ed saw, for the first time, what was on the chain: a blue-stoned silver ring.

The ring he’d won her at a passing summer’s market stall that had white elephant things as prizes instead of stuffed animals in the year they’d turned eighteen. The ring he’d held out to her, entire body and soul quaking, while he tripped through vague approximations of words his roaring ears couldn’t quite make out. The ring he’d slipped on her finger when she’d, miraculously, said yes, even though his proposal had been one of the greatest disasters of his life. The ring he’d not thought to take back when Granny firmly – but oh so gently, especially for _Granny_ – convinced them that getting married at eighteen when they were headed to opposite ends of the country for a good few years was not a smart move. Because that ring had been hers, even though they’d called off not only the engagement, but their whole romantic relationship. They’d work better as friends, they both agreed. And it had been awkward as hell for the first while, until it _hadn’t_ been any more, and they’d both even told each other about some of the dates they’d both gone on with other people because that’s what best friends who weren’t dating _did_.

 _Why the hell_ was Winry wearing _that ring_ around her neck on a chain he knew she _never_ took off and protected so well and so automatically?

Ed was still staring, slightly open-mouthed, when Winry looked up and caught him. She blinked in surprise for a moment, then followed his gaze and inhaled very sharply. She tucked the chain away as usual, folding it into the straps of her bra so it didn’t shift, but she didn’t look at Ed. And he couldn’t unsee what had been there. A part of him told him to just leave it and let her have her sentimental memories of their time as teenagers, but the other part of him – the part of him that _wondered_ on good days if the yearning had a place to be resurrected – and his natural ability to put his foot in it even at the best of times, _couldn’t_ keep silent.

“You’re wearing the ring.”

“Hmmm? Oh. Yeah.” She was too casual. Too forced. Too red in the part of her face she wasn’t able to hide from him.

“Winry. _Why_ are you wearing that ring?” She shrugged and mumbled something and Ed shook his head, even though she wasn’t looking at him and couldn’t see. “Did I... did I get it wrong? We did say... Right?” Shit. Shit, shit, shit, if he’d misunderstood and then acted like they weren’t even _dating_ any more and she’d been too kind and too hurt to say anything to correct him...

Winry looked up, eyes slightly wide. “No, Ed. I mean, yeah! I mean, we both decided we were good as friends. We _are_ good as friends. That’s why we both went out with other people. It was completely understood before I even left for the internship,” she confirmed.

“Then... why... are you wearing that shitty ring?” Her gaze shifted away again. “No, Win, you really gotta talk to me about this.”

“Just... leave it alone, Ed. It was just... I just...” She turned to him with anger that he knew wasn’t real. “What the hell does it matter to you what jewellery I wear? _Hell’s bells._ Shove off and focus on your own dress sense.”

She tried to get to the door, but it was behind him, and he stepped into her path, both hands outstretched towards her. “Just – wait. _Winry_ , please. It... it matters, okay? It matters because if... if you’re wearing it for a reason, then...” He wasn’t sure how to continue, so he tried again. “I mean, if I’d _known_ before this you were still... um... _wearing it_... I mean – shit, pissing twat fingers.” He ran his hands through his hair in frustration. “I’m just...”

She had gone very still and was watching him with a blank expression. “What? It matters because... what? Why?”

Ed put his head in his hands and shouted out some muffled, choice curses and she stood, patiently, and let him get it out of his system. “The other girls were... nice. Lovely. And I could... I could maybe have fallen in love with them, if I’d chosen to. I don’t – nobody ever explains that, in the shitty little romance pissups, yeah? How much of love is actually a choice. And, Win... hell, Winry. You’re my best friend. And... and we can be just that – just best friends – for our whole lives and I’ll be happy. Genuine, I will be. But... but if I can... If I can have another chance to choose to maybe... be more than... just your best friend... Still that but, um, also... choosing to, you know... love you, every single day... then...”

Winry’s lip trembled. “We... made the right call breaking up.”

Ed’s heart sank like a stone. “Yeah. Yeah, I mean... yeah. We did.”

Winry sniffed, hard. “I knew this. I _know_ this. I wouldn’t take it back, not at all, because it was so good but... Ed... I... um...” She sniffed again, but the tears started pooling in her eyes, anyway. “After a while I found the ring again and I had to put it on – not on my hand because people would talk and because it’s really impractical to wear rings as a mechanic but I had to... I think... I understand what you mean. About it being a choice. And, um, I think... I think I didn’t want to choose anything else if I had the chance of maybe getting to choose you, again.” Ed laughed, a little, and she looked shocked and then let out a wet laugh of her own. “I don’t even know... what I’m really saying. I just... I just... I was too scared to ask you, if it was just friendship or... but I really wanted to wear this ring.”

“You can wear it,” he said, lightheaded and dry-mouthed. “It’s yours.”

“What does this mean?” she asked.

“It means I wanna choose you for the rest of our lives, Winry.” It was easier to say, the second time. “Even when you drive me absolutely bleeding bonkers.”

He helped wipe away some of the tears streaking down her face. “We can’t get married – we’re not even dating,” she said, laugh-crying.

“Winry?”

“Yeah?”

“Be my girlfriend?”

“ _Really_?”

“No, I’m joking for the effect of it. _Ow_.”

“Yeah. Yeah, Ed, I’ll go out with you.”

“Great. Winry?”

“Yeah, Ed?” she laughed.

“Marry me?” It was even easier the third time.

“What is this – _The Sims_?”

Ed scowled at her, darkly. “Sodding hell, woman. What else do yo-”

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. It was a little bit unsure-awkward-breathless, like that first one they’d shared when they’d been fourteen. And then they broke apart, bumped noses, and started to laugh, and the second kiss was much more comfortably remembered, like returning to an old sweater you loved and had left behind accidentally.

***

They called Granny Pinako right after taking a walk to get breakfast and to make sure they were really on the same page. Winry held his Automail hand as often as she could, and Ed couldn’t stop staring at the way the light made her hair shine.

“Granny...” Winry sounded as nervous as Ed felt. “Um... You’re on speaker, by the way. Your... um... your objections to me ‘n Ed gettin’ married...” She got an accent when she was nervous, Ed was discovering. “Were they.... they were only ‘cause of our age and the difference, yeah?”

There was a long pause in which Ed started to sweat. “Put only yourself on the phone, Edward,” Pinako commanded. Ed obeyed, and got up to pace while the other end of the line was horrifically quiet for a while. “What are your intentions with my granddaughter, Elric?”

“Are you _serious_?” Ed spluttered.

“ _I_ am, but this is the _second_ time you haven’t asked for my permission.” Ed’s stomach sank in guilt. “And this is also the _second_ time you’re proposing in high-emotion circumstances. So. What do you want?”

“I... Granny, I’m sorry. I should have thought to ask –”

“That’s a rather momentous ask of your small brain,” Granny cut in.

Ed clenched his teeth. “I just... Winry is... She’s my best friend, and, um –”

“So is Al, and that strange fellow Ling from the university,” Granny cut in, unimpressed.

Ed took a deep breath. “Right, well, Winry is also not _related_ to me –”

“I can find lots of girls who aren’t,” Granny interjected.

“And I really like her –”

“I can find lots of boys who do, and they aren’t trying to marry her out of the blue.”

“And we work really well together –”

“Sorry, are you asking to marry her or to open up a new Rockbell Automail branch?”

“Would you _let me finish_?”

“No. I don’t have time to listen to little boys speaking nonsense,” Pinako snapped. “So either say something worth saying or –”

“I want to love her for the rest of our lives, you old hag!” Ed bellowed. “I want to... commit to her. And... grow with her. And have sex with her and maybe a few kids, if she wants! And if I have to do that without marrying her then _freaking fine_ , but I don’t _want_ to because she’s _important_ and this is _important_ because of that!”

Another beat of silence. “Well. Why didn’t you just say that in the first place, you demonic little elf?”

Ed’s exhale was a growl. “You were having me on.”

“I had to be sure that you were sure,” Pinako said, cheerfully. And then her tone dropped to something serious and almost soft. “Ed?”

“Yeah?” he said, still sullen.

“You were already my grandson. And, because of that, I’m as happy that she’s going to make _you_ happy and loved as I am that you’ll do that for her.” It felt like something had struck him in the chest, big and heavy and warm and sore in the best ways. “You can have my old engagement ring to give her when I next see you; it’s been with Sarah and Yuriy’s things until now.”

“Okay,” Ed said, sounding choked even to his own ears; so much so that Winry curled into his arms, looking anxious.

“Good. Put me back on speaker.”

It was a surreal conversation, but Winry was warm and breathing – and crying a little – in his arms. When Granny hung up, they called Al next, and found him doing laundry. They chatted a little as usual before Ed and Winry exchanged a look and blurted out the news. Al went dead silent.

“Alphonse?” Winry said, her voice small.

“I swear to every ancient deity named by man,” Al said, his voice oddly dangerous, “if you two are having me on I will...”

“We’re not,” Ed said, nervously. “We talked to Granny and everything.”

And then Al _yelled_ so loudly both Winry and Ed jumped hard enough to send the phone off the table and onto the floor.

“ _Finally. Fi-na-ly_! Holy shit. You did it! I thought – I was beginning to think you’d never be able to find each other again. Yes! _Fekking yes_! Whoooo!”

“I’m... not sure I was expecting this reaction,” Winry admitted, but she was grinning as wide as Ed was.

“You’re both _idiots_ ,” Al said, fondly, the excitement still radiating out his voice. “So. When are you thinking?”

“Um... Well... We... uh...” Ed and Winry shared another long look. “In three months, actually...”

Al snorted. “Of course. Because you two are just Like That. Capital letters Like That.”

“Do you think – would that be okay? As, um, my best man?”

“Brother,” Al said, “I’ve had your wedding speech written since the first time you managed to con her into saying yes.” And then, much more seriously, he added, “We’ll definitely make it work.” A beat. “Before you change your minds again.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, shove off,” Ed grumbled.

“What needs doing?” Al asked, and Winry pulled out the napkin from the breakfast place they’d written on.

***

The slight shake of the train underneath them was a comforting friend, by then. Ed held the notebook, arms on either side of Winry, who was in his lap. She pointed to items written down as she spoke about them.

“Okay, so we’re just waiting for Gracia to send us the options for flower girl dresses that she finds, and then we can make a decision on what Nina and Elicia will wear.”

“And we gotta figure out if the court will let them actually throw flower petals.”

“Oh, right.” Winry made a note in her careful, clinical hand next to something Ed had chicken-scrawled about the girls’ flower crowns. “Al and Ling will sort out their own suits, and Lan Fan and Paninya are busy looking into dresses or skirts right now, too – they said they’d go shopping tomorrow when Pan is off shift and Lan Fan is done with her PT of the day.”

“Oh, have you checked that both of them will be okay to dance? Or if we have to change that whole first dance tradition a little?”

“Yeah, they both said they’d be totally fine. Al? Did you ask him about dancing with Pan?”

“Yeah – he and Panyinya actually called and had a chat about it and he _said_ they were both confident it would be okay...” Ed frowned.

Winry stroked his hair a little absently. “Paninya _knows_ , Ed. Both personally and professionally. She’ll be gentle with him, I promise.”

“So it’s just me she likes roughousing?”

“Exactly,” Winry said, brightly, and Ed tried to pretend to be truly grumpy about it.

“We’re going to be a bit of a walking advertisement for the Automail industry up there,” he mused a moment later. “Between Lan Fan, Pan and me, and then you and Granny being mechanics. Oh, hell, throw in Al with his cr – Winry!”

She’d launched to the side without warning with a sharp, elongated little gasp, and he had to scramble to catch her so she didn’t tumble out of his lap. “What the _hell_ , Rockbell?”

She didn’t answer, but instead fished out her phone and began searching for something almost manically before putting the phone to her ear. “Hello? Hi, please could I speak to Doctor Garfiel? It’s Winry Rockbell.” A pause where she ignored Ed’s attempts to get her to tell him what was going on. “Hello, Garfiel! Winry here. List- Oh, I’m well, thanks, how are you? I’m glad. Listen, have they done all the admin stuff with our certificates and registration into the national database yet? No, no, no, I’m not asking for a due date on that all happening – I want to change something if it’s not too late.” Winry lit up. “ _Fantastic_. Please, please change something for me before it goes through? Thank you, thank you! I need my surname changed. Please put it down as Elric-Rockbell. With a hyphen, yeah. Yeah, Elric, like on the wedding invite – do you have that with - ? Great. Great! Thank you so much! See you in a month and a bit, then!”

Beaming, Winry twisted to look at him. Her smile slipped a little at the look she saw on his face. “Ed?” she asked, quietly.

“I just... That just... made it really real, you know?”

Winry smiled, slow but brilliant. “I know. Isn’t it great?”

He grinned back, shy but exultant. “Yeah. Yeah, it really is.” He tangled his flesh hand in her hair. “Although... Win... wouldn’t you want... I dunno. Something more... fancy... then just a court house date with a small party afterwards?”

She tipped her head to the side, actually considering it for a moment. Then she shook her head. “No. I’ll have everything I need there – all our friends. Even Mustang and Riza and Mr Armstrong have RSVPd by now. Granny walking me down the aisle. My mom’s dress. And good food afterwards.”

“Speaking of your mom’s dress – we gotta make sure the engagement ring fits before the day.”

“What?”

“Remember? Granny said we could have her old engagement ring to replace the pawn shop cheapo.” Winry’s face fell, and her hand strayed to the chain around her neck. Ed frowned. “What?”

“I just... I want this one,” she said, softly. Ed’s eyebrows both rose in surprise. “I _love_ Mom’s ring but... it’s _Mom’s_. This one... this one is _mine_.”

“Win, it’s like a lucky packet ring.”

“No it’s... Ed, I’m not gonna be able to wear it on my hand for most of my life. So if it’s going to be hidden, most times, anyway, then... Then I would much rather have _my_ ring. That I was won. That...” She shook her head. “I want _this_ one. I can take Mom’s wedding band, and you can have Dad’s, since Hohenheim, um -”

“Never actually proposed, the cheapskate bastard,” Ed muttered without heat.

“Right,” Winry said, with a little eyeroll at his theatrics. “And that’s... enough. This is enough.”

He kissed the side of her head. “You’re an odd duck, Winry Rockbell.”

“ _Elric_ -Rockbell,” she corrected.

“Not _yet_. I can still change my mind.”

“But you won’t,” she said, with conviction.

“No,” he said, just as convinced. “No, I don’t think I will.”

She slipped her hand into his Automail one, snuggled close and didn’t care that she was squashing their wedding plans between them. “Good,” she said.


End file.
